When you base everything your company builds on the backbone of safety first, there will come a time when you have to put up or shut up. Volvo has ridden the safety bandwagon for as long as I’ve been aware of the company, and for longer than that. Many a driveway had a Swedish brick parked there because they were the safe choice. They might have had exactly zero sex appeal, or any real inspiration for the driver, but if your luck was to run out, you stood a better-than-average chance of surviving whatever was about to happen.
I wish I knew what the presenter of this clip is saying, because that would enlighten me as to why this particular Volvo 850 was driven off of a cliff in a mine in an apparent crash test of some sort. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of rigging that propelled the 850 off and over, and the only two clues that this wasn’t a case of someone putting a brick on the pedal are the metal plate that keeps the Volvo from auguring into the ground, and a dirt berm to catch the car as it rolls away from the impact. The driver-side airbag goes off, while the passenger-side dummy gets the soft padding of the dashboard to hit it’s head on. Amazingly, the front end doesn’t accordion all the way to the windshield and it doesn’t bend as much as you would expect it to. You might not plan to drive off of the side of a mountain anytime soon, but at least you might live through the experience if you do!
They are saying it’s an alternative way of opening the hood for checking the oil for instance. But make you have some spare headlights in the trunk as for some reason they won’t always be functioning after the hood is opened like this.
The fanbelt might squeel a little as well.
Not quite what I was expecting…is it a legitimate test or is it a joke?
On my second date with my now-wife, we were driving around in my 91 Camaro and it started to overheat. I couldn’t get the hood to open as the release was bound up, so I drove into the parking lot of a hardware store with double speed bumps and hammered the Camaro back and forth over the bumps until the hood finally popped up. That POS definitely made an impression on her.
That’s a pretty effective way to tell if she’s a keeper!
Now if I drove off a cliff, I’d want a Volvo. Not for driving through a drainage ditch at 50mph.
It is more of an demonstration than a test, the man in the video tells us that thet the 850 model was the first car with side impact airbags and that Volvo is still one of the safest cars ever, basically.
These cars are tougher than they look.
Greetings from Sweden !
It is more of an demonstration than a test, the man in the video tells us that the 850 model was the first car with side impact airbags and that Volvo is still one of the safest cars ever, basically.
These cars are tougher than they look.
Greetings from Sweden !
apparantly these things can take some punishment! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7V-G3PiRUc&feature=emb_rel_end